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Watch out mountain-loving pot smokers, national park rangers are out to buzzkill your weed-inspired walkabouts. The Associated Press reported the story of a medical cannabis patient in Washington State—where pot is legal—who was busted by federal agents while on a hiking trip in Olympic National Park.

Karen Strand is one of over 27,000 people cited for cannabis on federal land since 2009. The ticket carries a fine of up to $5,000 and six months jail time, though the feds only fine most offenders. The experience leaves many nature-loving tokers with a bad taste in their mouth, especially in the 20 states where cannabis is legal in some form.

The federal government recently said it would allow Colorado and Washington State to move ahead with voter-approved legal cannabis laws, and outlined eight concerns that might invoke federal fury. One primary federal concern is pot possession in national parks. Go figure.

This policy is particularly problematic in the pot-tolerant Western US where the federal government owns the majority of the land. The AP published a list of the top twenty pot-ticket-issuing parks, and California takes the top two spots. Park rangers at Yosemite National Park issued 939 tickets, while officers at Golden Gate National Recreation Area doled out 902.

The park-possessive feds are likely less concerned about keeping potheads off their mountains, and more concerned about keeping a foothold in the lucrative war on pot, like a ghost of prohibition past. The pot tickets uncovered in the AP report represent potential revenue of $138 million. And though more and more states are opting out of the war on pot, minor marijuana possession tickets help fund federal law enforcement officers, and allow the feds to hold hyper-local power over otherwise law-abiding, mountain-loving citizens.

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